Computer industry looks to the East

HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai

The IT industry should be looking to the East not the West for customers and innovation, according to experts.

Delegates at the HP Mobility Summit, held this year for the first time in Shanghai, have been discussing the steps being taken in China, India and other 'developing' economies.

The overwhelming view is that the East is now challenging the traditional dominance of Silicon Valley and Western Europe.

"Every nation in the East looks to the East for growth opportunities," said Satjiv Chadill, senior vice president of global marketing at HP.

"There is a joke in Silicon Valley that IC no longer stands for integrated circuit but for Indians and Chinese. State-of-the-art software development is driven in India and the best of the world's manufacturing is in China."

Chadill added that the growth of sales in markets like mobile telephony has definitely made the East the place to be. In 2003 the proportion of phone ownership in the developing world overtook that of the US and Western Europe.

The situation is less clear in infrastructure. While large parts of the Indian subcontinent have no broadband infrastructure, for example, in those areas that it is in place quality can be better than that in the West.

"Bandwidth is a difficult problem," said Rex Wong, chief executive of Dave TV.

"Broadband speeds in Asia are generally about 4-5Mbps, but the average in the US is closer to 1-2Mbps. This means that IPTV in Asia has great pickup because they have high bandwidth."